


Under the Skin

by Dark_Sinestra



Series: DS9: Sub-Prime [14]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien anatomy, Angst, Biting, Blood, Bodily Fluids, Canon Compliant, Drama, Emotional Manipulation, Friendship, Infidelity, M/M, Mirror Sex, Near Death Experiences, Rough Sex, Topping, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-10 21:45:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16462904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Sinestra/pseuds/Dark_Sinestra
Summary: A brush with death has Julian considering his life and the stresses of the job, but a trip into escapism proves dangerous, threatening the very foundations of his friendship with Garak. As the two try to find a way to negotiate the new pitfalls, Odo faces some challenges of his own, and nothing goes as planned.





	Under the Skin

**Part I**  
   
_Julian  
USS Defiant_  
   
Cold. He couldn't remember the last time he had been so cold. It wasn't quite the cold of the vacuum of space, but that was only by a matter of a few degrees. The upper level of a gas giant's atmosphere was nowhere to stay for any length of time without things like environmental controls and recycling breathable atmosphere. Both he and Dax were shivering constantly now, not the small, intermittent shivers that helped regulate body temperature on a nippy day but the deep body shivers that heralded the beginning of the second stage of hypothermia.  
   
They had stopped talking to one another some time ago. The chattering of their teeth and muscle spasms of their jaws made it difficult. Besides, both of them knew that talking used more oxygen.  _Freeze or suffocate,_  he thought, idly wondering which would be worse. He knew the cold was beginning to affect his brain function. Otherwise, he didn't think he'd be nearly as detached about their impending deaths. He thought perhaps he gripped her more tightly to himself, but he could no longer be sure. He had little control of his limbs.  
   
How ironic it was that it came to this. It took being locked in a room together without life support for them finally to finish clearing the air between them after years of association in a dysfunctional pattern of pursuer and pursued, to behave as the rational adults they were and come clean.  _Why? Why did it take something like this?_  He tried to slow his breathing, but it was no use. His diaphragm was beginning to spasm. It wouldn't be much longer before heart arrhythmia set in. If he still had the control for it, he would've laughed. He had something he had dreamed of nearly steadily for two years straight, and now all he wanted was to see Leeta.  _Liar,_  a deeper part of his psyche whispered.  _You want to want to see her. You know who you want to see._  
   
“J-J-Julian,” Dax stuttered, “y-you're muh-moaning. A-are you a-all right?” She shifted her head and looked up at him.  
   
She was so pale, even her delicate markings starting to fade. He nodded convulsively and tried to lift her so that they could rest cheek to cheek and provide one another just a little more warmth. He gave up after a few moments of futility. It seemed as though she was stuck to him like a limpet to a rock, her arms so cramped in their hold that he couldn't budge her. “S-s-sorry,” he managed.  
   
She didn't answer, her head lowering again so that all he could see was the dark curve of her hair. Who did she long to see? In whose arms would she rather be dying? Lenara's? The captain's? Someone else's? Was there even anyone else alive or capable of reaching them, or were they all off in various parts of the ship dead and dying in different ways? Blunt force trauma, fire, electrical shock, suffocation. Each thought brought with it a clinical list of symptoms, internal bleeding and organ damage, burns, cellular death from oxygen deprivation.  _Stop it,_  he told himself.  _You actually want to die cataloging ways to go?  
   
I'd just as soon not die, if it's all the same,_  he retorted to himself feeling inappropriately amused.  _I'd rather have tea, Tarkalean. Double sweet._  
   
“Ju-Jul-Jul...” Dax gasped. He felt her fingers digging into his back as a distant sensation. She struggled to lift herself again.  
   
_Save your strength,_  he thought, or perhaps he said it. He couldn't be sure. Confusion was starting to set in. Why couldn't she just leave him alone? If anyone had told him how bloody painful hypothermia was, he might have gone ahead and let the both of them suck down the fluorine gas in the flooded corridor.  
   
_How morbid of you,_  a thought came in a voice that wasn't his.  
   
He knew that voice. He tried to smile.  _Garak,_  he thought. _I should've known you wouldn't miss the party.  
   
If this is a party, I'd rather be at work,_  the voice came again, something strangely comforting and reassuring about its familiar sarcasm.  _You need to pay attention and look at the light._  
   
He felt a vague stirring of irritation. When had Garak become a mystic, and why was he trying to encourage him to die? He then realized that the light he saw was quite real. He blinked and squinted against it right along with Dax and felt someone pulling them up. His mind gladly released the reins then, and for quite some time, he knew no more.  
   
When he came to, he found himself on one of the sickbay beds of the Defiant. “Dax,” he croaked, trying to look around.  
   
“Is fine, Doctor,” one of his hand-picked medics assured him. “You need to rest.”  
   
He thought he saw the captain lying in the next bed over. “Is he...” he started to ask.  
   
“Also fine,” the man said. He felt the cool nozzle of a hypo-spray against his neck and a rush of warm comfort. He knew he had just been given a sedative and was powerless to resist the pull back into welcoming blackness.  
   
The next time he awoke, he realized that he was in the infirmary back on the station. Unused to being an occupant of one of the biobeds, he tried to look around, only to realize that he was in one of the private rooms. Two blurry shapes at the side of his bed resolved into the figures of Leeta and Garak. The Dabo girl had her head resting on the Cardassian's shoulder, her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open in sleep. He met Garak's gaze, only to have the tailor put a finger to his own lips and then smile at him warmly. He returned the smile and settled back. He was so tired, sore, and drained he felt that he could sleep another week.  
   
Garak carefully awoke Leeta, his gentleness touching Julian in a way he couldn't begin to explain. The Cardassian was such a conundrum. He thought he could study him a hundred years and still not understand who he really was. “Someone would like to see you, dear,” Garak murmured as she sat up, blinking at him sleepily. He gestured at Julian.  
   
Her attention snapped over to him, her smile like sunshine emerging from cloud cover. “Sweetie,” she said, immediately leaning forward and taking his hand between both of hers, lifting it, and lightly kissing the backs of his fingers. “You had us so worried.”  
   
Smiling benevolently at both of them, Garak stood. “I'll come see you later,” he said, inclining his head to Julian and stepping out of the room.  
   
Julian followed him with his eyes, wanting to call him back. Reluctantly, he looked back to Leeta and offered her the best smile he could muster. “I'm OK,” he said. “How long have I been here? Did we...who didn't make it?”  
   
“I'm not allowed to talk to you about any of that,” she said, patting him lightly and standing. “Let me go get Nurse Frendel.”  
   
He nodded and watched her go, too, anxious and wanting more than anything to get up and out of that bed. There were bound to be other people who were hurt, people who should have been his patients. His head nurse came back into the room with Leeta in tow and offered him a reassuring smile. “Welcome back,” he said. “You've been here a few hours now. I'm keeping you overnight for observation. Standard procedure for hypothermia patients, Doctor.”  
   
He shook his head, resigned to the overnight stay. He knew arguing would just be obnoxious and get him nowhere. “The crew?” he asked anxiously.  
   
“There were some losses,” the nurse said. “No one from the command staff. Once you've been released, you'll have full access to the list. For now, I would suggest you rest. Once you're up and about tomorrow, you're going to be busy dealing with a full facility.”  
   
He nodded again, saddened to hear of the losses. The Gamma Quadrant seemed more dangerous by the day. It was very rare they managed any incursions that didn't involve an encounter with Jem'Hadar attack ships.  _I need a break,_  he thought.  _We all do._ “Thank you, Nurse Frendel. I know the infirmary is in good hands,” he said. It didn't stop him from wanting to be the one already treating the wounded.  
   
The Bajoran nodded and left him with Leeta and the final instructions to call him if he needed anything. “I'm so glad you're OK,” she said. “Do you need anything?”  
   
He didn't dare ask for what he most wanted right at that moment. “Water would be nice,” he said instead. “How long have you been here?”  
   
She poured him a glass from a nearby pitcher and helped him adjust the bed so that he could sit up and drink. “Ever since they brought you in. Quark was just so happy to be alive, he didn't even question me when I demanded the time. I would've quit had he said no.”  
   
She was such a good woman. He felt a pang of guilt. “I'm glad it didn't come to that,” he said quietly, sipping his water. “Are you tired? You look tired.”  
   
“I'm fine,” she brushed the question off. “I don't think I would've been calm enough to catch a few winks if Garak hadn't been here. I think Nurse Frendel let him stay for my sake more than yours,” she said sheepishly. “I was a little emotional.”  
   
Now that he looked at her more closely, he could see the puffiness of her lids and the reddish tint to the whites of her eyes. “I'm harder to kill than that,” he said, attempting humor. He didn't know if he had ever been closer to death, a fact he thrust away as soon as he thought it.  
   
“Every time you go away on that ship, I know something like this can happen,” she said softly. “I'm just glad it usually doesn't. Rom was beside himself worrying about Quark.” She lapsed silent with a guilty expression.  
   
“What?” he asked, curious.  
   
She looked over her shoulder, even though there was no chance of their being overheard and leaned in closer. “It wouldn't be so bad if Quark died,” she said with a low ferocity he hadn't expected from her. She sighed. “That sounded so horrible, but he's horrible. Horrible to Rom. Horrible to all of us.”  
   
“You know,” he said, “if you're so stressed out you wish your boss was dead...”  
   
She cut him off. “I don't really. I just hate how he treats Rom. He makes me so mad!” She made a fuss of smoothing his blanket and getting him more comfortable, taking the empty water glass and lowering the bed, despite his protests that he'd rather sit up. “You've been ordered to rest, Doctor,” she said pertly.  
   
“You're so cute when you get stern,” he said, smiling in spite of himself.  
   
“You haven't seen stern,” she said, “but if you keep talking, you're going to.” She ran her fingers gently through his tangled hair, teasing out the snarls. “Would it be easier for you if I let you sleep?” she asked.  
   
He nodded. “I hate to say it, but yes. If you're here, I'll want to talk. If I want to talk...”  
   
“You won't sleep,” she finished for him. Leaning down, she kissed his forehead. “Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave?”  
   
He hesitated. “No,” he said at last. There was no way for him to ask her to send Garak in without upsetting or insulting her, not after her just told her he wanted to sleep.  
   
“I'll be by in the morning,” she said, giving him a final kiss and leaving.  
   
He closed his eyes and sighed softly. Why did things have to be so confusing? He couldn't argue with his psyche's desires when they came from a moment of finality, could he? He had been convinced that they were going to die, and his supposed last thoughts were of Garak. What did that say about him?  
   
He felt a cool touch on his hand and almost jumped out of the hospital bed, his eyes flying open. “I'm sorry,” Garak said. “I thought for certain you heard me come in.”  
   
“No,” he said, twisting his hand so he could clasp Garak's. “I didn't think you'd come back tonight.”  
   
“After the look you gave me when I was leaving? Julian, please, give me a little credit,” he said, reaching behind himself and pulling a chair close enough to sit next to the bed. After he resettled, he gave him his hand again.  
   
_Julian, not “Doctor”,_  he thought. It was rare that Garak called him Julian these days. He wanted to tell him of his last thoughts before they were found, all of it. The words wouldn't come. “Thank you,” he said instead.  
   
“I recall a time when a frightened, bitter man believed that he was dying, and a dashing, yet strangely irritating young man came to his rescue,” Garak said with an undercurrent of warm amusement in his rich voice. “All the man really needed was someone to hold his hand.”  
   
“Strangely irritating, eh?” Julian asked, his face creasing a smile.  
   
Garak made a soft tsking noise. “In all that blatant flattery, you seize upon the one criticism? Am I the only one who sees a problem with this?”  
   
He suddenly felt hot tears slide from the corners of his eyes into the hair at his temples, relief to be alive, release of all the previous pent tension and fear, gratitude that for once in his life, the one thing he wanted most in the world was at hand at the time he needed it most. He would have tried to speak had Garak not laid the index finger of his free hand against his lips and shaken his head subtly. Taking a convulsive breath, he let it out audibly and turned his cheek into the cool hand now against it, both eyes squeezed shut.  
   
“You're all right now,” Garak told him quietly. “As I've told you before, you're strong. Whatever happened on that ship is behind you, and you're in control of much of what lies before you.”  
   
He followed the cadence of his voice and felt himself slip past the momentary loss of control. He exhaled most of the tension from his body and lay passive while Garak lightly stroked his cheek with his thumb. When he opened his eyes again, he felt calmer. “You are such a damnable contradiction,” he said softly. “And you know it, don't you?”  
   
The tailor smiled faintly. “I've been under the impression for quite some time that you wouldn't have me any other way.”  
   
“I haven't had you in quite some time,” he said. Perhaps his brush with death had made him bold, or perhaps it was the residual effect of the sedatives. He didn't care. He had said his piece earlier with Dax. Now it was Garak's turn.  
   
“Are you prepared to break Leeta's heart?” Garak asked, a world of complexity in the look with which he favored Julian.  
   
Why? Why did he always do that, say the one thing that would keep him from throwing caution to the wind and just acting on his own desires? He dropped his gaze, chagrined and shamed both.  
   
“I didn't think so,” he continued in the same gentle tone of voice.  
   
“What about your heart?” Julian asked.  
   
“Have I ever given you the impression that it's fragile?” the tailor asked, amusement in the depth of blue eyes. Thankfully, it wasn't his usual cruel or caustic humor. That had yet to rear its head that night. He smoothed Julian's hair back from his forehead.  
   
“I don't know why you put up with me,” the doctor said, largely feeling he deserved none of this care. He was no closer to divesting himself of the biggest wedge between them, and he knew that no amount of tenderness on Garak's part would change that.  
   
“I often ask myself the same thing,” Garak said. “I decided it's because of all of the officers on the station, you're the only one with any hope of saving me should an assassin come along and succeed where others have failed. Personal motivation can be quite strong for taking decisive, life saving action.”  
   
Julian stared at him for about two seconds before finding himself shaking with suppressed laughter. He didn't want the nurse hearing him and coming to find if anything was wrong. “You're dreadful. You are a horrible, horrible man. Half of me thinks I should take that at face value.”  
   
“Half of you is right,” he said, beaming.  
   
“The tragedy of it is that I'll probably never know which half,” he said, still amused. He grew more serious as he allowed himself to look into the lovely alien eyes, inscrutable as ever. “You were there,” he blurted.  
   
“I beg pardon?” Garak asked, arching an eye ridge.  
   
“Not literally, of course,” he said, reaching up and taking the hand in his hair between both of his and settling it against his chest. “But toward the end, when I was starting to lose consciousness, you're the one my oxygen deprived mind conjured.”  
   
“I have never felt sorrier for you,” Garak said, wide eyed.  
   
He chuffed a soft laugh and shook his head. “Oh, I give up. You're not going to take the compliment, are you?”  
   
“Was it a compliment?” he asked innocently. “After all, you didn't say what I was doing. For all I know, I was the one sucking the air and heat out of the room in your elaborate delusion.”  
   
“Every time I think I might just once like a peek into your mind, you go and say something like that,” he said, both exasperated and amused in equal parts. “You were telling me to pay attention to the light.”  
   
“Oh, lovely,” Garak said, rolling his eyes. “Isn't going into the light some insipid euphemism you humans have for dying?”  
   
“As a matter of fact, it is. I was quite irritated with you, until I realized the light was real, and you were basically telling me to get my head out of my arse and hang on just a little longer.”  
   
“What a relief to know that at least one part of your mind has a sound grasp of my mannerisms,” he said. “Now, wrap that wonderfully sensible part of that mind of yours around this. You need to sleep, and, therefore, I need to go.”  
   
He wanted to clutch his hand like a child in the dark, but he knew better. Garak had made up his mind. He pressed his palm against his sternum with both his hands and then released him. “Thank you,” he said again, “for coming back.”  
   
“I could say the same thing to you, Doctor,” he said, pressing a moment more than Julian held and standing. “This place simply wouldn't be the same without you.”  
   
He felt that pressure long after the man was gone, a weight on his heart in more ways than one. He wasn't ready to break Leeta's heart. It was true. He couldn't walk away from her and back to Garak with open arms and a clean slate. He couldn't force him to endure his self-imposed barriers of “this close and no closer”. He couldn't bear it if love finally turned irrevocably to hatred. Leeta wasn't as quick to pick up on his distance since he had gotten more careful. Garak still felt it just then when his barriers were down lower than they had been in years. For the first time, he believed he understood exactly what the Cardassian had done in letting him go and the depth of love it took to have such grace. He understood, because now he was having to do the same. Were it not for the steady sound of his heart monitor, he might have believed he was in trouble. The pain in his chest was nearly unbearable.  
   
_Garak  
The Infirmary_  
   
Garak stepped into the corridor outside Julian's room and rubbed at his eye ridges. It had been a long night of worry, and it was very late. On his way out, he noticed Major Kira still seated in the waiting area, looking a little lost and out of place. “Major?” he asked, pausing near the front entrance.  
   
She frowned slightly, stood, and headed over to him. “I probably should leave for a while,” she admitted. “They said I'm not in the way, but I'm not doing much good here, am I?”  
   
“I'm not sure,” he said. “Who are you here for?”  
   
“You wouldn't understand,” she said, gesturing for him to start walking again. She fell into step beside him. “How's Julian?”  
   
“He seems OK,” he said. “Tired.”  
   
“He saved Jadzia, and she saved the rest of us,” she said. “He has really...come a long way, hasn't he?”  
   
“That he has,” he said fondly. He wondered where she intended to go. Surely she didn't intend to follow him all the way back to his quarters?  
   
She answered his unasked question by stopping in front of the temple. “I think I'm going to pray for a while,” she said. “Good night, Garak.”  
   
“Good night, Major,” he replied, inclining his head. He had no patience for mysticism. It seemed like a waste of time, petitioning something or someone to fix one's life or offer guidance, time better spent doing the hard work oneself. He climbed the stairs to the second level of the Promenade and looked out one of the star ports into the deep black of space.  
   
Death could come for any one of them at any time. It was a reality he accepted. It had been part of his life for as long as he was of school age and beyond. He thought back to a long ago school team member, partially blinded by a honge during one of the exercise raids. One minute, he was near the top of the class, a heavyset bully that few dared to cross. The moment the predatory bird took his eye, all of that was over. He was a cripple, pitied by a few, simply forgotten and discarded by the rest. Without his full vision, he could never hope to be useful in the Order or Central Command. Better off dead, many said, and there had been a time Garak was in full agreement.  
   
He never let himself care, not for the longest time. Even when Tolan had died, it was more of an inconvenience having to go home and see him, weak in the bed, a skeletal parody of his former strength, and listen to him go on and on about the Oralian Way. He still had the recitation mask. Why had he kept it? Then to find out the truth that Tain was his father, not Tolan after all, Tolan his mother's brother. So much of a family puzzle fell into place then and left him feeling empty and hollowed out, part of him ashamed for the relief he felt that he wasn't the son of a mere gardener, part of him appalled at the depth of the deception, part of him angry at the things they had allowed Tain to do. All of those parts were there and yet distant, almost as though he had watched someone else feel them. That detachment had been so carefully cultivated in him by every influence around him and served him so very well for decades. It wasn't until later in his adulthood that it started to erode.  
   
Where was it now? He hugged himself against the perpetual chill of the station and the deeper chill that came from the knowledge that Julian had escaped death by a narrow margin. He had come so close to giving up on pride and simply accepting what the doctor was willing to give, letting him have his distance and his inconsistency and saying it was enough for him. How much of himself could he give away before there was nothing left? With detachment gone, he needed his pride more than ever. Otherwise, what did it mean to be Cardassian? He refused to reduce that to a label or a title. No, it had to mean something. Flesh, blood, and DNA was not enough. If it were, that war “orphan” Rugal that Dukat tried to use would be Cardassian. Even the boy had sense enough to know that it was not so.  
   
He ached for home. Often it was background pain, a constant presence that could be ignored and put off for its very consistency. At the moment, it was nearly crippling. He knew that if he could go home, he could put every hellish day on this station behind him. Oh, it would be with him in the way that all experiences he had ever had always were, but the emphasis would make all the difference. He believed—he had to believe—that he could reclaim himself, that he could become who and what he had been raised to be. Perhaps there would be some small differences, yes, but he could be a Cardassian again, not this strange creature that looked and talked like one but was hollow inside. It was that hollowness that was the problem, he realized. Nature abhorred a vacuum and had conspired to fill his with pain.  
   
_Go back to your quarters,_  he told himself and instantly moved to obey. The only thing worse than feeling like an empty shell was putting himself on display. No one needed to see that.  
   
_Julian  
Private Quarters_  
   
Julian could hardly wait. He tore into the small package that had arrived for him on a freighter earlier that day and all but crowed his delight. His long awaited holoprogram had arrived. He grinned wide and set it aside on his table, hurrying to change out of his uniform and into a tuxedo he had ordered from Garak some time ago with no explanation as to the style beyond a vague, “It's a type of Earth formal wear.”  
   
Yes, he could have had the program clothe him, but there was something magical about a good fitting tux, something that transformed the mundane to the extraordinary. At first he hadn't intended to keep it all a secret, but Leeta's disdain for most of his favorite programs had him feeling a little self-conscious. There was more to it than that, as he well knew. It had been a very long time since he kept anything just for himself. In his job and in his personal life, he was expected to give and be far more selfless than most of his peers. Although he didn't begrudge his co-workers or his loved ones time and energy spent on them, more and more these days he was feeling he had less of a reserve from which to give. He viewed this as a way to recharge his energy cells with some harmless fun that most of his friends simply wouldn't appreciate or understand.  
   
The program was everything it promised to be and then some. He was entranced with the sleek, gleaming world of the mid-1960's, replete with wonderfully impractical spy devices disguised as everything from shoe heels to boutonnières, campy names, lovely ladies, and no one expecting him to be anything other than charming, debonair, and clever. There was just enough challenge within the built in plots and scenarios that he didn't feel bored, but everything retained a lighthearted humor that was the perfect antidote to the deadly serious conflicts they continued to face in the Gamma Quadrant and closer to home. His most recent brush with death brought home to him his need for some immersive escapism.  
   
He didn't give much thought to how much time he was spending in the holosuite over the next few weeks. Leeta seemed grateful that he was pressuring her less for together time with her punishing work schedule. Miles had some of his own programs that weren't of as much interest to Julian, and Dax was either working extra hours or spending quite a bit of off time with Kira in their historical fantasies. He knew better than to try to spend more time with Garak. The temptation to act on his personal revelations would be too strong and ultimately selfish. He might not be able to do much for the Cardassian, but he could do that. In the latter, he made a mistake. No one enjoyed ferreting out a juicy secret quite as much as the tailor, and no one excelled at it more.  
   
_Garak  
Quark's Bar_  
   
His mother told him years ago that his curiosity would lead him to ruin. At some point in early life, he stopped listening to Mila. After all, what was she but a housekeeper and occasional secretary to Tain, when he had larger goals and nearly bottomless ambition? The longer he lived, the smarter Mila seemed to be. Garak emerged with Julian into uncharacteristic quiet in Quark's bar. Due to the power requirements of storing the crew's personal patterns in Deep Space Nine's computer system, Quark had been forced to close down and evacuate the patrons for safety reasons. Cables that resembled shadowy, tentacled leviathans coiled and stretched away from the holosuite as far as Garak could see. He slightly arched a brow ridge.  
   
Quark approached him and the doctor, looking decidedly put out. “This is bad for business,” he said flatly. “Not only that, I figured it out. I realized where they were, but did I get any thanks? No, of course not.” He squinted at both of them. “You're welcome.” He squinted harder, this time focusing on Garak. “And you're bleeding,” he said. “I hope you didn't bleed everywhere in there. It's unsanitary.”  
   
“I'm fine,” Garak said rather pointedly. “Thank you for asking.”  
   
Julian glanced back at Garak, his large, dark eyes unreadable for a change. “Do you need me to treat that?” he asked a little awkwardly.  
   
Garak lifted a hand and shrugged off the concern. “No,” he said, “it's little more than a nick.”  
   
“Nick or not, you're bleeding in my bar,” Quark said, ushering both of them ahead of him. “As you can see, I'm closed. I just hope this doesn't damage my holosuite rentals. People have expectations that those things are safe. They'll take one look at you two and change their minds.”  
   
“We're leaving, Quark,” Julian said irritably. “You don't have to be a nag about it.” He shot a look at Garak, shook his head, and the two of them headed quickly out of the bar. More cable sprawled across the Promenade, leading down a side corridor. “I suppose I should go report to Captain Sisko,” Julian offered, hesitant in a way that lent hidden weight to the seemingly innocuous words.  
   
_This is a form of good-bye,_  Garak thought as he watched the younger man. Everything now paid lie to what they said to one another in the holosuite a few minutes before. Would they still lunch tomorrow? Garak didn't believe it. Would he be the one to cancel to spare his friend the discomfort? No, he rather thought that he would not. In all their dealings, he had never truly attempted to hide his nature from Julian. In fact, he had warned him on more than one occasion that he was ruthless and not to be trusted. For a time, he believed that the doctor truly understood that. Now he knew that he had not. He inclined his head and put on his most pleasant, professional smile, waiting for Julian to turn to go before resuming his own progress toward his quarters.  
   
He wondered if he should have pushed the man the rest of the way, forced him to make a decision. Would he have killed Garak on the spot in order to save his friends and co-workers? Well, that was the real question, wasn't it? The truth was that Garak didn't know, but the possibility had been strong enough that he hadn't wanted to risk it. The stakes had been high enough as they were.  _You know what I am!_  He wasn't surprised at the vehemence of the thought, just the bitterness. He knew for certain that any glamor he held, any residual charm, had dropped away in Julian's regard that night. The doctor had his first glimpse of Garak's core unmasked and had, not at all surprisingly, found him lacking. Again, he felt a small frisson of anger.  
   
Once back in his own quarters, he thoroughly cleaned the small scratch on his face and the deeper wound at his neck ridge. It throbbed and burned, but he could see that it was neat and clean. There would be a scar if he chose not to get it tended.  _Let there be a scar,_  he thought. It would be a good reminder of the cost of too much trust.  
   
_Julian  
Private Quarters_  
   
It took three stiff drinks to take the edge off of his adrenaline rush. Even so as he sat on his sofa, the entire scene seemed to be limned by an aura of unreality, jagged at the seams. How had things gotten so horribly out of hand, and how could he ever look at Garak the same way again? He wished he had never even heard of that stupid holosuite program. How fitting that for once it was his secrecy with Garak that led to disaster, rather than the other way around. Hadn't the two of them been switching places in their painful dance back and forth all along?  
   
He had pretended that everything was the same when they parted ways, that they would continue to meet for lunch, that they would further indulge in the silly escapism of the campy spy holoprogram. It was a lie. At the time he said it, he knew it to be a lie. He simply couldn't articulate the truth beneath it, that before this day, he had never seen Garak's true face, and he wasn't certain he could accept him for who he was. It wasn't that Garak had ever lied to him about that, perhaps most ironically of all. The Cardassian always insisted he was exactly what he proved himself to be when he nearly ended the program, risking the deaths of most of the command crew in the process, Julian's closest friends in that roster. It was Julian who glossed that over, who decided that all of that was in the past for Garak and didn't apply to him now.  
   
Recent memories flashed across his mind's eye in a dreadful sort of collage, Garak looking better in a tuxedo than anyone had a right to look, the jolt of Kira on the bed in place of Ana, the photo of Dax as Honey, the cut on Garak's face when they both realized that the safety protocol was no longer functioning, the flash of his gun barrel, Garak's blood, his wound, his expression. Julian ran a slow hand down his face.  _I shot him,_  he thought. He wasn't sure what gave him more dismay, the fact itself or the fact that given the same choice, he'd do it again. He would always choose the life of his friends and co-workers over Garak's instinct for self-preservation. He would have shot him dead had he forced the issue. He tried to ignore the light tremor in his hands. _Why did you make me choose?_  The thought contained anger and sorrow both. He knew without articulating it that something inside him died the moment he pulled that trigger, but what?

**Part II**

_Garak  
Replimat Café_  
   
The tailor listened with dutiful attentiveness to Rom's account of his part in the dramatic rescue. He knew that Rom had genuine reason to be proud. Even Quark could claim some small part in saving the crew. Garak was just surrounded by heroes. It made a not so insignificant part of him want to vomit. The Ferengi were acting more and more like Starfleeters. Rom's son was away at academy. There were rumors that Bajor was making moves toward joining the Federation. He had no escape anymore, his social walls becoming as claustrophobia inducing as his shop could be at times.  
   
He was glad that Rom was too absorbed to tell how many pills he had taken that morning. His migraines, after a brief reprieve, had returned in full force, and that said nothing of his nightmares. So what if his pupils were a little wider than usual? So what if his words weren't quite so precise? He realized some time ago that with everyone he knew with the exception of Odo, he could feign a level of normalcy and interaction that satisfied their expectations. Such a thing would be almost impossible among Cardassians without much greater effort.  
   
“Garak?” Rom said, coming to a sudden halt in his narrative.  
   
Perhaps he wasn't quite as subtle as he thought. “Yes?” he asked, lifting his tea for a neat sip.  
   
The Ferengi gave him a searching look. “If you'd rather talk about something else, that's OK.”  
   
“No, please,” he said graciously, “continue. I rather liked your description of Eddington's face when the Chief saw the Defiant.”  
   
Rom beamed. It was all the encouragement he needed. As Garak listened to the rest of it, he almost envied the waiter his simplicity. Almost.  
   
Never had he been more aware of the passage of time. It thrust him and Julian away from their moment of divergence in an inexorable rush, each day of little to no contact adding its momentum behind the days before. At first he swallowed his pride and made attempts to bridge the gap, after giving Julian a few days to process things on his own. Every overture was met with polite denial. He either had too much work to do, a date with Leeta, or arrangements with O'Brien and their new war program. The reasons were always perfectly reasonable, nothing to which Garak could object. Did the doctor truly believe the tailor didn't know a freeze out when he experienced it?  
   
He backed off. What choice did he really have? He could make a fool of himself to no effect, or he could accept the simple fact. Their friendship had changed. Given enough time, it would no longer exist at all except frozen in the past like one of those Earth insects in amber. It was the natural way of things. Why did it have to happen so soon? Twice he composed messages to send to Mila to tell her the one thing he imagined that all mothers across the galaxy loved hearing from their children.  _You were right. You were so very right._  They remained on his computer, unsent.  
   
Partially to keep in practice, partially out of boredom, he monitored supposedly secure transmissions and stuck his fingers more deeply into intelligence files than he had since the end of the occupation. He avoided Odo before he left for Earth with Captain Sisko, just in case he wasn't quite good enough at feigning surprise over their leaving. It was alarming, the thought of changeling infiltrators on earth. It made him wonder about and worry for Cardassia. With all of their troubles with the Klingons and lost colonies, would anyone there be as focused as he or she ought to be on domestic security? He knew that he could poke around forever in illicit government files and never find an adequate answer to that question.  
   
Odo returned and resumed his breakfasts with Garak. Neither of them spoke of the growing changeling threat. Unlike Rom and Leeta, he watched Garak closely. The tailor could tell that the security chief cataloged his enlarged pupils, the nearly undetectable slur of his voice, and the clumsiness of his hands. For reasons unknown to him, Odo chose to keep his observations to himself. Perhaps he realized that Garak was not drinking to excess, not behaving as an addict, but trying to survive his excruciating migraines without losing his sanity in the process. Perhaps he wished to give Garak the only thing he had to offer him actively besides his friendship, his privacy. For whatever the reason, the tailor was grateful.  
   
His breakfast companion was more voluble about Bajor's progression toward joining the Federation. As he often did with Rom, he listened attentively while not caring for the topic at hand. He had seen this coming from the moment he realized that Starfleet had come to fill the power vacuum left by his own people. They claimed not to be conquerors. By the strictest definition, they were not. Their conquests were more insidious, their weapons of choice words and ideas, peppered by a generous offering of resources when words alone weren't enough. They sought to spread their bland, insipid optimism to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Could they truly be surprised that the Dominion viewed them as such a threat?  
   
“Of course, I'm tightening security,” Odo said.  
   
Garak tuned back in from his unpleasant wandering. “A wise move,” he said. “There are still many on Bajor who would prefer to remain isolated from alien influences.”  
   
“Yes,” Odo agreed, nodding. “I trust you'll keep an ear out for anything suspicious?”  
   
“You'd be better served by my eyes,” Garak said a bit flippantly.  
   
Odo snorted softly, the way he always did when he found something amusing and didn't want to show it. “I'm most worried about First Minister Shakaar,” the changeling continued. “He'll be the most visible target.”  
   
“That's the only worry you have about him, I'm sure,” Garak said in a way that meant just the opposite. He smiled inwardly at Odo's suddenly much more attentive look laced with apprehension. This was an old topic that never ceased to provide the tailor with much needed entertainment.  
   
“What are you getting at, Garak?” the changeling growled, apprehension giving way to annoyance.  
   
Garak favored him with his blandest smile. “He's a capable man with quite the history in the resistance,” he said mildly, as careful with the lacing of his innuendo as he was threading his wares. “I am sure he is used to taking threats in stride. What did you think I meant, Constable?”  
   
The silence dragged as Odo silently probed him for the smallest crack in his facade. He could tell the exact moment when the shape shifter gave up for the time being, Odo's posture shifting slightly back and away from him. “He'll be here in two days,” he said. “If I were you, during that time I'd make myself scarce, just in case someone wants to try to pin something on you.”  
   
_Am I so defanged that it doesn't even occur to you that I could decide to be a danger?_  Garak wondered. It was a disheartening thought. The remainder of his appetite fled. “Of course,” he said pleasantly. “Besides, I doubt that a Cardassian is what the First Minister wants to see while touring the station. I'd be as welcome as a vole infestation.” Somehow, his voice no longer sounded so pleasant in his own ears.  
   
Odo's strangely plastic brow managed to furrow. “I was merely concerned about you, Garak. I wasn't trying to imply anything.”  
   
_I wish that you had been,_  he thought with an inward sigh. “I know that,” he said instead. He watched Odo's concern struggle with his respect for privacy and saw the respect win the fight. It was time to move on. “I need to open the shop,” he said, standing and seizing his tray. “It was a pleasure.” He felt Odo's eyes on his back all the way out of the Replimat, like an itch he couldn't quite reach to scratch.  
   
_Julian  
Leeta's Quarters_  
   
Julian smiled as he watched Leeta bustle about setting the table. He knew better than to try to help her. She had her own way of doing things and insisted that his eye for color was completely hopeless. It had been a long time since he had seen her so energetic and excited. Staying out of her way, he said, “I'm almost afraid to ask what the occasion is.” He hadn't forgotten some obscure anniversary, had he? He hoped not.  
   
“First Minister Shakaar is coming to the station tomorrow,” she said, beaming. “It's wonderful news, not just for Bajor but for the Federation, too. It means that the provisional government is getting serious about their intentions. It's nice to see something not moving at a snail's pace for once, don't you think?”  
   
“It is nice,” he said sincerely. It was also somewhat unexpected. Bajor's reactions had been initially suspicious, sometimes even hostile. They had all come such a long way in a relatively short amount of time. He liked to think that in some part he had something to do with that. Perhaps in some ways, Garak did, too. First there was the treaty with Cardassia, and now this, serious talks about how Bajor could fit into the Federation and what the Federation could in turn do for them.  
   
Leeta beckoned him to the table, and he took his seat. “Smells good,” he said automatically. He was glad that she relied on the replicator most of the time. It was difficult to pretend to enjoy her cooking, no matter how hard he tried. “So you're wanting to see Bajor become part of the Federation?” he asked. He wondered why they hadn't had this conversation before.  
   
“I am,” she said with a nod. “There are those who talk of old Bajor, from before the occupation, but that Bajor doesn't exist any more. There aren't a large number of people alive who even remember what our world was like prior to the Cardassians' arrival. It doesn't sound as though it was the sort of place I'd want to live, a strict caste system, steep stratification in the economic classes. Your family name dictated your entire life and fate. Where would that leave people like me? I don't even know my family name.”  
   
Just to play devil's advocate, he said, “Well, there are other options for Bajor that don't involve Federation membership or a return to the old ways.” He helped himself to a serving of veklava and some of the field peas.  
   
“True,” she said, doing the same, “but most of those options involve a lot of uncertainty. We can't just ignore the Gamma Quadrant. So far the Prophets haven't seen fit to prevent passage of enemies from there to here. They might never. We can't stand alone, and if you think there are factions on Bajor who are reluctant to ally with the Federation, just try proposing a Dominion option. Not to mention the Cardassians, despite the treaty, could still be a threat, as could the Klingons. The days of Bajor's sitting off in its own little corner of the Alpha Quadrant, mostly unnoticed and free to ignore the rest of the universe, are gone.”  
   
“You don't find some of our ideas and ideals threatening?” he asked.  
   
“I lived through the occupation,” she said simply, her dark eyes glittering. “I'll leave the arguments of ideology and demagoguery to the vedek assembly. From my somewhat simple concerns, it looks like our best hope for lasting peace and progress.”  
   
“You're anything but simple,” he said, smiling slightly. “Do you know First Minister Shakaar personally?”  
   
She shook her head. “No, I've never met him. I like what I've heard about him, and I know Kira knows him fairly well. She seems to respect him. That says a lot to me.”  
   
“To me as well,” he agreed. “I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to speak to him much while he's here. I know he's on a tight schedule. Even if we do a meet and greet, it will be fairly standard. I'd expect the major and the captain to have most of his time. Say, would you like to come to the wardroom get together? I'm not prohibited from bringing a date.”  
   
“I had better not,” she said, flashing him a brief, brilliant smile. “It's sweet of you to offer. However, there are enough Bajorans who still cling to some ideas of caste that it could be seen as an insult for you to show up at a function for someone that important with a Dabo girl.”  
   
“You're not just a Dabo girl,” he said.  
   
She took his free hand and gave it a warm squeeze. “That's one of the things I love about you,” she said. “You never view the world with a prejudiced eye, and you don't expect anybody else to do it, either. I wish we lived in that world of yours, Sweetie. I truly do.”  
   
He squeezed her hand in return and smiled. Inwardly he sighed. Hadn't Garak often accused him of the same thing? Of course he said it much less admiringly, but it boiled down to the same observation. He was naïve. For all of his vast intelligence, he still saw the world through a filter of optimism and privilege. Why couldn't he be right about it for once? “Then I'll tell you all about it,” he said instead, grateful that when he put his mind to it, he could hide just about anything from her, including his ongoing depression about and alienation from one who saw his flaws probably clearer than anyone else he had ever known.  
   
_Garak  
Replimat Café_  
   
Odo hadn't stopped fidgeting since he took his seat with Garak at their breakfast table. From long years of experience, the tailor knew that the best approach would be to let the changeling work himself up to saying whatever was on his mind. It was exhausting watching him, though. He half expected him to lose cohesion and begin oozing across the floor at any moment. “I have a question,” Odo said bluntly, his fidgeting concentrating to a pinky finger tapping a light staccato on the table top.  
   
Garak set his mug down and leaned forward slightly, favoring Odo with an open, attentive expression. “I'm listening,” he said.  
   
The changeling pressed his lips together and made a soft, frustrated sound. “Never mind,” he said.  
   
Leaning back, the tailor inclined his head and took another sip from his mug. “How do you think the negotiations will go today?” he asked casually.  
   
“How do you do it?” Odo asked suddenly. “How do you...how can you stand to spend time with Leeta and Doctor Bashir?”  
   
_Aha,_  Garak thought.  _So it has finally come to a head. Took him long enough._  “I'm not involved with the doctor,” he said. “I hardly have the right to dictate with whom he spends his time. Leeta is a decent woman. I'm pleased that he has someone worthy of his attention.”  
   
“It doesn't bother you at all?” Odo sounded incredulous.  
   
“It doesn't any more,” he said, pausing before adding, “although it did at first. Why are you asking me this?” He met the security chief's gaze, something of a challenge in his own.  _I shared with you. Your turn._  
   
“Why did you ever tell him how you felt?” he asked instead of answering. “A Starfleet officer, a human one at that, and a Cardassian? At the time, you had to know that it would be...impossible?”  
   
_And yet the impossibility had nothing to do with Starfleet, his humanity, or my race. In fact it's still a mystery,_  he thought. “I'm hardly one to give advice on love,” he said.  
   
“Just...tell me. Please,” Odo asked.  
   
Garak frowned, heart-to-hearts not exactly his forte, even with those with whom he was intimate, much less more distant friends such as Odo. “There are never guarantees,” he said, trying his best not to sound as though he were spouting platitudes and feeling as though he was failing miserably. “You could have every point of commonality and seem like a perfect match, and it still might not work.”  
   
“But why did you tell him? You of all people?”  
   
Under normal circumstances, he would feign offense at that and the way it was phrased. Somewhere along the way, he had passed a threshold with Odo, one that would no longer allow such flippant treatment. It was more depressing evidence that he was becoming someone his former self wouldn't even recognize. “If you must know, he came to me first, and you of all people should know why I didn't turn him away,” he said, turning the challenge around.  
   
“Now that it's over, isn't it worse than it was before you started?” the changeling asked, something plaintive in his gravely rasp.  
   
“No, it isn't,” he said, surprised to discover in the answer that this was true. “It didn't work out for reasons I have no intention of discussing with you. That doesn't mean I regret being with him. Love isn't meant to be permanent, any more than any other emotion. It evolves. It ends. Sometimes messily, sometimes not. You're asking me something I can't tell you.” He leaned in much closer so that there would be no danger of their being overheard. “If you should tell her how you feel.” He made certain not to name names, as one could never be too careful. “Don't look so surprised. I've seen this coming for two years at least. You're not the only perceptive observer on this station.  
   
“I can't answer that for you. No one can, except you. I can tell you that if you don't make a decision one way or another, you'll have no one to blame for your ensuing misery but yourself. Love isn't for the faint of heart, Constable. Get in or stay out. There's no such thing as in between.”  
   
Odo nodded thoughtfully. “You've given me a lot to think about,” he said, standing suddenly. “I trust you'll keep this discreet?”  
   
“Do you know anyone who keeps secrets better than I?” Garak asked with a smile.  
   
“Just one person,” Odo replied, the corners of his mouth curving upward subtly.  
   
_Don't be so sure of that,_  Garak thought in amusement. He watched the security chief walk away, his eyes drawn further down the Promenade toward the infirmary. He decided that he should encourage people to come to him for advice more often, because he told them things that he needed to hear. He finished his breakfast, disposed of his tray, and walked the short distance to the infirmary. One of the nurses directed him back to Julian's office, and he inclined his head politely for the help. It took Julian nearly a minute to become aware of him as he stood silently in the doorway.  
   
“Garak, you nearly gave me a heart attack,” he said, beckoning him in and having the computer shut the door behind him. “What can I do for you?”  
   
Direct, honest confrontation went against practically everything in his nature, and yet he had learned that he simply couldn't deal with humans as though they were Cardassians. The nuances always got lost in the shuffle. “You can stop avoiding me, or you can look me in the eyes and tell me why you intend to continue to do so,” he said. The doctor reddened slightly and lifted a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Stop right there,” Garak instructed. “You do that right before you lie.”  
   
“Coming from you, that's a bit much,” Julian said heatedly.  
   
“I'm not interested in your righteous indignation. I'm well aware of my flaws. I'm giving you a very simple choice here. It shouldn't be that difficult.”  
   
Julian stood to pace in the small confines. “It's not simple. Nothing with you ever is. Yes, I've been avoiding you. You forced me to choose between harming you and allowing people I care about to be harmed. Has it occurred to you that might be difficult for me? Hard enough as your friend, harder yet as a doctor?”  
   
“I regret that my decision caused you pain,” Garak said.  
   
“But you don't regret the decision, and we both know that,” Julian retorted. “That's a problem for me. I don't want to wind up in that situation again with you. Ever. You can't give me a guarantee that it won't happen, and I...”  
   
“Can't promise that your reaction won't be exactly the same should it happen again, or worse,” Garak finished for him.  
   
“Yes,” he said, pain evident in his always expressive eyes. “I don't...blame you, and I'm not angry with you. It's my own fault for refusing to see what you always told me was there. I wanted to believe...differently.”  
   
“You see?” Garak said, offering him a bland smile. “That wasn't so hard.”  
   
“Like hell it wasn't,” Julian said more quietly. “Look, I don't want to avoid you. It's not fair to punish you for being who you are. We should just...be careful about the circumstances.”  
   
“Supervised visitations? Perhaps we should log in with the Constable so that he knows our whereabouts and can stage a quick intervention should I become unruly?” Garak arched an eye ridge.  
   
“Unruly? You do realize that you could have killed Captain Sisko, Kira, Dax, Miles, and Worf all in one fell swoop? That's more than unruly. It's utterly reckless and...and selfish, just to save your own skin.”  
   
“And yours,” Garak said, unmoved by his anger. “Or has that fact escaped you?”  
   
“No,” Julian snapped. “Don't you dare. Don't even try to pretend that it was concern for me.”  
   
“Is it so inconceivable that it was concern for both of us? Am I to believe you're willing to go from viewing me as some softened, Starfleet molded Cardassian ex-spy who would sacrifice his own life for the so-called greater good to someone who thinks only ever of himself? I expect that sort of black and white thinking from the major, not from you.”  
   
“Even if part of that was for me, I didn't want that. I didn't need your protection. You know, I am sick to death of people trying to make those kinds of decisions for me, first Miles, then you. I don't care about your reasons. I don't care if it was solely for me. It was despicable. Are you happy now? Am I being honest enough for you?” he demanded.  
   
“So you are angry with me,” Garak said.  
   
“I suppose I am,” he replied, slumping slightly. “Because...I know you're better than that, even if you don't.”  
   
“Oh, please,” Garak snorted, his turn for irritation. “Not this again. The evidence was right in your face. Had you not shot me, I would have opened that door. I wasn't pretending or bluffing. I would have done it. Had it killed your colleagues, I would have regretted it as an unfortunate accident, nothing more.”  
   
“You let me go.”  
   
“What? What are you talking about?” he asked, his irritation thrown off track by the unexpected shift of direction.  
   
“When I needed for our relationship to end, you allowed me to do it. You gave me a clean break, but you haven't abandoned me. Even now with what happened between us in that holosuite, you're here, stopping me from being an ass. You aren't cruel to Leeta. Those aren't the actions and attitude of a cold blooded killer or the perfect operative. The days where you could completely smoke screen me are long over. You know how to be selfless, and I've seen you do it. Am I to ignore that evidence, try to pretend that isn't also the real you?”  
   
He was taking them into murky territory, throwing him off balance. To what end? Garak felt another flash of irritation. It was time to put an end to it or...or what? He supposed he was about to find out. “What are you so afraid I'll see if you finally stop playing games with me?” he asked. “You say you tire of my obfuscation. Well, let's set it aside, then.” He spread his arms and met Julian's gaze with brutal intensity. “It's not my preference, but I've learned that the finer points of Cardassian socializing are lost on humans altogether. Let's do this the Starfleet way, everything on the table including our hands.”  
   
Julian looked away. “Garak...”  
   
“Yes, I know how to be selfless. There aren't many Cardassians who don't, even if our definition doesn't fit in your narrow little box of how such things work. I'm starting to believe that you're the one who doesn't. You make a good show of it, though. I doubt any of your colleagues or your lover see what I see. All the more reason to keep me at arms' length, hmm?” He would have just about given another molar to know what he said precisely that caused such an intense flash of pain in the doctor's eyes, but it was all too brief, and he was all too aware that he wasn't going to get any answers this way. “Just do me a favor. If you're going to continue putting me off, don't insult me with justifications when we both know what's really going on here.”  
   
“I'll stop putting you off,” Julian said.  
   
Garak noticed he still didn't make eye contact.  _Liar,_  he thought and wondered how long he'd tolerate it before he stopped wanting the man's company at all. “Lunch today?” he asked, a challenging tone in his voice.  
   
“All right,” Julian replied.  
   
“I'm holding you to that,” he warned him.  
   
“I know. I'll be there. I'm sorry for how I've been.” He finally lifted his gaze.  
   
_Well, there's a small spark of truth,_  Garak thought, not that he placed much value on it. “I'll see you then.” As he turned, he felt a strange tension in the air, almost as though Julian were going to reach out to stop him. He didn't, yet Garak was almost certain that had he turned and looked just then, he would have read an expression to give him pause.  _Am I playing with fire? Should I just let this go?_  He recalled his own words to Odo.  _Get in or stay out. There's no such thing as in between. Then where does that leave us?_  he wondered as he left Julian's office.

**Part III**

_Julian  
The Infirmary_  
   
It was slightly more than an hour since Garak had left his office, slightly less than three until what most would consider a decent lunch time. They had no patients, and there were no nuisance diseases currently circulating through the population. He couldn't focus on his routine record keeping. “This is ridiculous,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. “Why can't I just decide on a course of action and stick to it when it comes to him?” He had tried to be as gracious as the Cardassian had been, as mature and understanding. He had believed that he was once and for all setting all of that behind them, particularly after the holosuite incident. So why had it taken every ounce of his control to allow the tailor to leave without doing something horribly rash?  
   
The thought of waiting three hours just to sit across a table at the Replimat from him and talk about things that didn't matter was intolerable. “Get a grip,” he muttered. He considered paying an impromptu visit to Leeta and immediately rejected the thought. She'd be deeply asleep right now and not appreciative of a surprise visit just because he was suddenly horny and frustrated. She was perceptive enough that she might even figure out that it had nothing to do with her. That would never do. Shaking his head, he stood and strode from his office. He found one of the nurses in the lab, unpacking new supplies and putting them away. “I'm stepping out. Call me if you need me.”  
   
“All right, Doctor,” she said, never even looking over at him from her work.  
   
That suited him fine. He wasn't sure what anyone would see if they looked at him too closely. He left the infirmary and paused on the Promenade. His initial intention had been to go to his quarters for quick relief, but Garak's open light caught him like a flame a moth.  _This is crazy,_  he told himself.  _You're crazy._  
   
He crossed the flow of foot traffic and slipped into the shop. Garak had his back to the door, arranging older merchandise on the back racks. Julian watched him and allowed himself an unadulterated moment of pure enjoyment. Garak was graceful and precise in almost everything he did. It didn't matter if he believed that he had an audience or not. He found himself staring at the gray hands. Swallowing, he stepped further in. He wondered how close he could get before the tailor perceived him and then how much longer Garak would make him wait before letting him know he knew he was there. It was possible he already did.  
   
He was a little over halfway to him when Garak said without turning, “It's early for lunch, wouldn't you say? Is there something I can do for you, Doctor? I am a bit busy at the moment.”  
   
“I want a fitting,” he said without thinking.  
   
Garak's hands stopped moving over the rack. He turned and glanced at Julian over his shoulder. “Now?” he asked.  
   
“Yes,” Julian replied, glancing quickly over the merchandise. “That,” he pointed at something with four different clashing colors and random looking patterns. It was the first thing that really caught his eye, and he already regretted selecting it. Garak was critical enough of his fashion sense, or lack thereof as the man loved pointing out.  
   
“You'll forgive me for saying it,” Garak said drolly, “but I don't think the latest in Andorian fashion is for you.”  
   
“Yes, I forgive you for saying it. Now, are you going to help me or not?” he asked tightly.  
   
The Cardassian eyed him for some long, tortuous moments before nodding and hanging what he already held in his hands. He walked the short distance to the Andorian outfit and plucked its hanger then gestured Julian ahead of him into the nearest fitting room. He hung the clothing on a wall hook. “When you've put it on, let me know. If you need any help with any of the fastenings, just say so.”  
   
He knew better than to say he needed help with his uniform. His mouth now dry, he nodded and waited for the tailor to leave.  _What in the hell are you doing?_  he asked himself. He didn't have a good answer for it. Quickly stripping from his uniform, he started struggling with the loud outfit. It was more complex than it looked from the outside, very typical of most of Garak's creations. Either it truly wasn't designed for the human body type in any way, or he had done something very wrong. “Garak?” he called out hesitantly. “I think I need help.”  
   
Did the tailor keep him waiting longer than usual, or was he just that eager to have him in the small fitting room with him? He was about to call out again when the curtain briefly whisked open just enough to admit Garak. Amusement and a little annoyance flashed in the blue eyes. “You really did make a mess of things,” he chided him, immediately reaching to a set of clasps Julian had fastened at his left shoulder.  
   
_Yes, I did,_  Julian thought. Garak's touch was nothing but professional and yet every brush of the cool gray fingers eroded his composure. He tried not to watch them while they sorted out his clumsy mistakes. There was no safe place to rest his gaze, neither on the tailor nor on the mirrors around them. Seeing their joint reflections was somehow worse.  
   
“Now,” Garak said, taking him firmly by the shoulders and turning him to face his own reflection. “I have to say, the cut isn't bad on you. You're as slender as they are, but the colors are atrocious with your complexion. You look positively yellow.”  
   
Garak was right, of course. The garish orange, purple, green, and gold brought out a sallow tone in his skin. He looked himself in the eyes. How could Garak not see what was blatantly there? His gaze shifted downward and stopped on the curved gray fingers still clasping his shoulders. The grip was tight. Was the tailor trying to prevent him from turning around? He couldn't see Garak's face in the mirror, just the sleek curve of his hair. He pressed backward subtly and felt his shoulder blades touch Garak's chest. The Cardassian didn't step away.  
   
He then pressed not so subtly, and there was the resistance he had been expecting. Garak's grip tightened further and his arms stiffened, preventing any more backward movement. Julian held his breath. The silence between them had dragged for far too long. Any moment he expected admonition or an airy return to the professional charade of shop keeper with a difficult customer. When neither came and the silence continued to weigh upon him, he reached back between them, sliding his palm flat over the front of Garak's tunic beneath his belt. He gasped softly at the feel of a hard, unyielding bulge, unmistakable even through the layers of thick clothing.  
   
Garak's grip grew vise-like, but he didn't thrust the doctor away. Taking the lack of outright rejection as encouragement of sorts, Julian fumbled his hand beneath the tunic hem, bunching it up against his wrist while he felt for the clasp of the trousers. With deft surgeon's fingers, he managed to work it loose one handed. His breath came more quickly, and he gasped again as he slipped his hand into the parted fabric, closed his fingers around the wet heat of Garak's cock, and stroked the entire length of it. The Cardassian's only concession to him came from a press of forehead to the back of his head.  
   
He didn't dare to glance at the mirror. He didn't want to see his own expression while he took this forbidden pleasure from a reluctant partner or the obscene bulge in a body suit not designed to be accommodating of such displays. That Garak was reluctant to accept this he had no doubt. He could feel it in his profound tension and the absolute control he maintained in the face of the skillful ministrations. He squeezed and drew upward. He felt wetness coating his fingers and palm and the perfect weight and heat of something he had missed more than he realized until right in that moment. He circled his thumb at the sensitive opening and felt Garak's breath spill warm down the back of his neck. He tried to turn. The implacable grip wouldn't allow it, and the tailor gave him a small, harsh shake as though to insist that he stay put. He sensed that if he spoke, he would shatter the moment, so he didn't, furtive breaths and the rhythmic pump of his hand over increasingly slick flesh the only sounds in the dressing room, not loud enough to call attention to them.  
   
The enclosed space grew stuffy from their combined body heat. Julian felt damp all over and flushed. He wanted Garak to touch him, too, to give him something besides his stillness and tacit agreement. More frustrated than before, he rubbed his free hand over the garish fabric, too closely woven and tight for him to get any sort of grip on himself. Garak suddenly released his shoulders, seized his wrist, and forcibly pulled his hand away from the front of his body. He stilled his other hand over the Cardassian's cock and held his breath again, wondering what he intended to do to him next. In the mirror, he saw one fierce blue eye reflected at him from over his shoulder. He couldn't look away, not when he felt deft hands unfastening the complex outfit, nor when he realized that Garak was undressing him.  
   
_Yes,_  he thought.  _Thank God, yes._  He shrugged out of the clinging fabric, having to release the tailor to do it, and stepped from the pants legs. The garish bodysuit became a puddle of vibrant color on the floor, stepped over and forgotten. He turned and clung tightly to the man, pulling at the back of his thick tunic and knotting it in both of his fists. Garak twisted his face slightly so that Julian's hungry kiss met a jaw ridge instead of his lips. Undeterred, he lipped and bit at him, demanding a response, thrusting at him with his hips, grinding cock to cock.  _Damn you,_  he thought,  _I know you want this as much as I do._  
   
He lifted both hands to the cool face, pulled it to him, and forced Garak to allow the kiss mouth to mouth. Unrelenting, he growled low, biting at his lower lip and tugging back, delving his tongue inward. He slid his hands further back and tangled them in the thick black hair, tugging sharply.  _Kiss me like you mean it, you bastard!_  
   
Garak moaned softly, a desperate sound from the back of the throat. Suddenly, he wrapped his arms tightly about Julian, his blunt cut nails digging and raking at his back. They staggered as they pushed one another, seeking leverage. Julian felt cold mirror at his back. It stung the shallow gashes. He didn't care. He welcomed the pain, all of it. He bit with abandon at Garak's neck ridges and relished every harsh shudder against him, knowing they were as much from pain as pleasure. He was too starved for this to show mercy or give quarter.  
   
He brought shaking hands down between them to fumble at the fastenings of Garak's tunic. Garak grabbed his wrists and forced the backs of his hands against the mirror.  _No,_  he thought,  _not this time. You don't get your way this time._  He jerked his hands from the grip, Garak's surprise only partially registering. Thrusting with his back against the mirror, he managed to turn them so that it was Garak who was pinned and went for the tunic a second time, working it open and only by some miracle managing not to burst any of the delicate hooks and eyes. He rubbed chest to chest, deliberately raking his nipples over the sharp ridges. The pleasure wracked him straight to his core.  
   
He wanted inside that amazing, alien sheath, penetration that was tighter and sweeter than anything else he had ever experienced, before or since his last time with the tailor. It took him a few tries. It seemed almost as though Garak was trying to thwart him, and maybe he was. It didn't matter. He wanted what he wanted, and he was determined to have it. Both of them groaned and clung to one another just a little tighter when he felt the outer ridge shift and part and felt his cock nestle into a velvety space that was barely large enough to accommodate it beside the fullness of the base of Garak's erection.  
   
He lifted his hands again, his palms against Garak's jaw, the gray face between the arch of his fingers, tilting the Cardassian's head back against the mirror. He held him there, looking deeply into the blue eyes that were so adept at holding secrets within secrets. They were as enigmatic as the blood streaked mirror. Had he been expecting more? Had he thought that if he could get Garak to yield to him like this, he would open him wide and obliterate all that stood between them? He kissed him extra harshly to shut those eyes and tasted blood, not his own. He ground his hips against him, drew back, and thrust again. Garak's jaw muscle rippled beneath the tiny scales of his cheek in a silvery gray flash, his teeth clenching.  
   
Julian knew he was hurting him. He knew it wasn't like him to do this to anyone, much less someone he cared about, so why couldn't he stop? Why was he thrusting with all the mindlessness of a targ in musth? Why did he crave the knotted tension building in his partner?  _How much more of this can he take?_  he wondered, watching Garak's lips draw back in a grimace. He wasn't expecting him to open his eyes again or the feeling of exposure when recognition of whatever drove him and contemptuous amusement flashed in the blue depths. One look was all it took for the balance of power to shift, for his inexplicable anger to drain. Instead of twisting him or pushing him back, Garak simply shut his eyes again and clenched his hands at his hips, encouraging him to continue.  
   
He leaned forward and laid his cheek against Garak's, biting down on his own tongue to keep from crying out. It felt too good. It felt as though his strength flowed from him right along with his seed in a wracking release that lasted twice as long as what he was used to. He slid down Garak's body and dropped to his knees. Heedless of the mess, he rubbed both cheeks and his parted lips over the man's soaked cock and the ridged scales to either side of it. He opened his mouth wider and raised up so that he could plunge downward over head and shaft. He gagged once, shifted himself and tried again, relaxing his throat. It had been too long. He had momentarily forgotten, but now he knew what he was doing and how to ease the way. He tasted himself on Garak, a strong, sharp musk over the milder but more pervasive glaze of thick lubrication. He lapped and sucked, only partially flaccid and wondering if he was going to work his way back up to full arousal with this. How long had they been in the dressing room now?  
   
He didn't know and didn't care, a reckless attitude during work hours. He knew this, too, and allowed the thought to slip away. All that mattered right in that moment was Garak, his pleasure, the taste and feel of him, a scent that he realized he caught faintly from time to time when they lunched together and now wondered if he had been secretly aroused at those times, capable of hiding it when he concentrated and chose to do so, unlike his unfortunate human counterparts. There was no hiding it now. He came up for air and plunged down again, ground his nose against the raised ridge, and swallowed hard to caress him with his throat. As he pulled back, he felt Garak's cock swell and pulse. His mouth flooded, and he found himself wondering how long it had been for him last. He was slow to pull back, wanting to prolong the moment for as long as he could.  
   
Panting, Garak braced himself against the streaked mirror, letting his fingers slip away from Julian's hair. He glanced down at him and reached to pull his trousers up. “You can clean up in the washroom,” he said. “I have a portable dermal regenerator in my emergency med kit. I'll get it for you.” Julian nodded and somehow managed to force his rubbery muscles to do his bidding, climbing to his feet, flexing his back, and wincing. Garak left and returned with the small device in hand. “Better let me,” he said in a matter-of-fact way. “If you miss a spot, I wouldn't want to be you answering the question of what that is or how it got there.”  
   
He nodded again and turned his back so that Garak could erase his handiwork. He regretted the loss. That pain helped to anchor all of what they had just done in the reality of the here and now, a feeling that was already beginning to fade and slip away.  
   
“Done,” Garak said.  
   
Julian turned and took it from him. “Hold still,” he said, raising his free hand to brace Garak's chin so that he could run the regenerator over his ravaged lips. He kept his focus on the healing flesh so he wouldn't have to look into his eyes. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what expression would show itself now that they were re-establishing their barriers. “I'm sorry I hurt you,” he murmured.  
   
Garak waited until he finished to answer. “No you're not.” He took the regenerator back and left the dressing room again. Julian knew he wasn't coming back this time. Sighing to himself, he carefully gathered the Andorian outfit and hung it back on its hanger, not sure if he fastened it all correctly or not. He zipped up his jumpsuit without his turtleneck and raced the short distance to the washroom so that he could clean up thoroughly before dressing. He was grateful no medical emergencies had come through and very aware of how lucky he was for that.  
   
“You're an ass,” he told his reflection. Outwardly, he looked as respectable as ever. No one knew how deceptive appearances could be more than he. He stepped from the wash room into the stock room. Garak slipped past him wordlessly so that he could clean up, too. Unsure of what to do, he waited. He decided he'd let Garak set the tone for whatever came next.  
   
When Garak emerged, he seemed somewhat surprised to see him there. “Aren't you supposed to be working?” he asked.  
   
“Yes, I am,” he said.  
   
“Then I suggest you get back to it,” he said. After a short pause, he added, “I hope you don't mind, but I don't think I'm up for lunch today after all. Perhaps another time.”  
   
Julian winced. “If that's how you feel, I'm not going to argue with you, but I would like the chance to talk about this later.”  
   
“Talk about what?” the tailor asked, tipping his head. “Do you think this is the first time I've ever been used? It's not. There's really nothing to talk about.”  
   
His angry denial died on his lips. Hadn't he done just that? He had an itch that Leeta couldn't scratch. He wasn't prepared to leave her. He couldn't give Garak what he felt he deserved, so he had no intention of trying to pretend. That always ended in disaster. “You're not upset with me?”  
   
“Do I seem upset, Doctor?” he asked.  
   
It was the dreaded polite businessman front, the expression that was the equivalent of tapioca, bland and utterly inoffensive. If he knew Garak as well as he believed he did, it meant he had cut him, but how deeply? He also knew that he wasn't going to get an answer in the shop, not during business hours, not when Garak could retreat into Cardassian virtuous industry. “We both know you never seem upset if you don't want to,” he said. “If it's all right with you, I want to stop by later after work and talk.”  
   
“You're going to force this, aren't you? You can't just leave it alone?” Garak asked, irritation sharpening his voice.  
   
“Yes to your first question. No to your second. I'll see you tonight,” he said, smiling slightly and turning to leave. Now he had an entire afternoon to brace himself for what might be a very unpleasant conversation and to sort out exactly why he had been so rash to begin with. He hoped it would be enough.  
   
_Garak  
Garak's Clothiers_  
   
After Julian left, Garak returned to the fitting room to retrieve the outfit. It needed cleaning, as did the mirror. He removed it to the stock room and returned with a cloth and solvent for the mirror. With just a few spritzes and wipes, he had the polished surface gleaming. He dabbed up the few spots on the floor and gave the room a critical once over. Good as new.  
   
The rhythm of his work day allowed him to calm the turbulence stirred by the unexpected visit. Public wasn't the place for sorting out messy emotions or having angry outbursts. He took a few of his pills to stave off anticipated trouble, not looking forward to having to renew the prescription. A few customers, evidently wanting to impress the First Minister, came to him to purchase Bajoran formal wear. Aside from the sporadic distractions, he was able to get his displays shifted in anticipation of the newest collections coming out within the week.  
   
When he finished, he closed early. He wasn't eager to have the promised conversation, far from it. He wanted the time to settle himself and sort his uncharacteristically complicated reaction into something manageable. He made his way to his quarters quickly, hoping not to run into anyone who would want to talk to him along the way. There were few enough of them. Logistics was on his side.  
   
The first thing he did behind closed doors was to strip from his clothing and take a long, thorough shower. Nothing physical could wash away the soiled feeling of being used; however, being clean always made him feel better. Afterward, he chose a dark tunic with little embellishment and a conservative cut.  _You allowed it. You actively participated,_ he thought to his reflection. It had been too long since he felt truly wanted. Holding himself apart from any who might have possibly taken an interest had been a mistake, made him vulnerable to his own needs. Of course the doctor was intelligent and perceptive enough to sense that. He had been foolish to believe he would never try to exploit it.  
   
_You weren't the only blind one_ , he addressed Julian in his mind.  _There are parts of you I failed to see._  It had been flattering to think of a somewhat naïve young man enamored of his experience and wanting to learn what he had to teach. The doctor was a better pupil than he anticipated. He added pride to the list of internal casualties his isolation on Deep Space Nine had cost him, one more piece of what made him Cardassian taken away.  
   
He ate an early dinner and allowed himself a small, seated nap. When he awoke, he felt more clear headed. It occurred to him that he could simply not be there when Julian arrived. That would only postpone the inevitable. It was a small station, seemed smaller all the time. There was nowhere he could go to avoid this confrontation. It wasn't in his best interest to do that, anyway. He allowed something in a moment of weakness. That didn't mean he had to remain in that position. No, there were specific things he could do and say, he knew, to leverage this to an advantage of sorts. He nodded slowly to himself. A setback was not necessarily a loss. He plucked a PADD from a side table and pulled up a new enigma tale. New literature out of Cardassia was growing rare. He savored it when he managed to get his hands on it.  
   
His door chimed about an hour after Julian would have gotten off work, assuming a normal day. Garak called, “Enter,” casually and set the PADD aside as the doctor stepped into the room dressed in an outfit he knew Garak liked.  _Conciliation, or seduction?_  Garak wondered, maintaining his detachment. “Please,” he said without rising, “have a seat.” He gestured at the chair catty corner to his spot on his sofa.  
   
“Thanks,” the doctor said, offering a fleeting, closed lipped smile and taking the seat. Garak noticed he sat straight, not settling in. He was uncomfortable. Just as well.  
   
“May I get you anything?” he offered cordially, content to play the consummate host.  
   
“No, thank you. I just finished supper. Garak,” he said, hesitating before adding, “I owe you an apology.”  
   
“For what, precisely?” He felt it best to see how the doctor saw what had happened between them before trying to push his own agenda.  
   
“For what I did to you today. For...re-opening old wounds and crossing a line we both decided some time ago we'd never cross again. I took advantage of...” He hesitated again, umber eyes searching Garak's.  
   
_Are you going to say it?_  Garak wondered as he watched him and listened.  _Are you going to point out blatantly that I'm alone?_  
   
“Your feelings,” he said instead.  
   
“What feelings might those be, Doctor?” he asked mildly.  
   
The man laughed nervously. “You're really intent on making me pay for this, aren't you?”  
   
“How can I accept your apology if I don't know what it is you're sorry for?” he asked reasonably. “Or for that matter, what it is you think you've done?”  
   
“I know you still love me,” he said quietly.  
   
Garak laughed. He couldn't help himself. Of course he loved him, but that had nothing to do with what happened in the dressing room. Julian's angry, perplexed look just served to amuse him that much more. “What a world you live in,” he said, his voice still rich from his laughter. “Chased by so many, truly held by none. Yes, I can see how you'd believe you wounded my poor, yearning heart.”  
   
“I don't understand what's so funny,” he said, sounding almost petulant.  
   
“I know that,” Garak said. “It should set your mind at ease to know I'm not twisted in knots with longing or wanting a return to what we had. At our best, it still didn't work very well, did it?”  
   
The doctor gave him a long, searching look. “You expect me to believe you're not upset?”  
   
“Would it be easier for you if I were?” he asked. “Perhaps that's what you'd like?”  
   
“Of course not,” he retorted, frowning deeply. “I don't want you hurt.”  
   
“That's not the impression you gave me earlier,” he all but purred, satisfied at the instant color rising in the man's cheeks. After all these years, he was still ridiculously easy to provoke to a blush. “Please, Doctor, you're not the young ingénue on your first adventure. Why the coyness now, after the fact?”  
   
“That wasn't like me, and you know it,” he replied, looking away.  
   
“Wasn't it?” he asked, arching an eye ridge. “You see, I think it was very like you when you're conflicted. You were angry with yourself and taking it out on me. It was easy, because I allowed it. I didn't fight you, and I didn't answer in kind. To tell you the truth, I was intrigued, curious just how far you'd go.” He dropped his voice to an intimate whisper as he leaned toward him. “I should have kept my eyes closed.”  
   
“You're enjoying this,” Julian accused. “You love the fact that when you look at me these days, I look more and more like you.”  
   
Garak smiled. Well, that was an unexpected little gift, that revelation. It somehow made his own recent hit to his pride more bearable. It was true. Misery loved company. “Don't worry, my dear. You have a way to go yet before any of your friends would pick up on it.”  
   
“It won't happen again,” he said stonily.  
   
“That's entirely up to you,” Garak replied, spreading both hands and sitting back once more. “I told myself that I wouldn't interfere in your relationship, and I meant it. It never occurred to me that you'd come to me. I could have stopped you. Is that why you're angry with me, because I didn't stop you? Or is it that you want me to be as furious with you as you are with yourself? You want my scorn as a scourge for your guilty conscience? I let you use my body today. That's not enough for you?”  
   
“You'll forgive me if I'm skeptical,” Julian retorted. “As manipulative as you are...”  
   
Garak cut him off. “Yes, that would be easier for you, wouldn't it? Painting over the scene with an opaque glaze of delusion and denial. It must have been my pulling the strings, not your impulsiveness or selfishness at all. When I went to see you this morning, I must have slyly planted subconscious seeds of desire, my invitation to lunch a coded offer of a clandestine tryst. Imagine my surprise when the seeds bore fruit a full three hours before the appointed time!” Sarcasm sharpened his voice, anger dangerously close to returning in force.  
   
“No, you're right,” he conceded unexpectedly. “I can't blame it on you.” He looked down at his loosely laced fingers resting between his thighs. “I have tried so hard to find...a balance point...when it comes to us. I've tried to let go the way you did. It seems I can emulate some of your less endearing traits a little too well, but when it comes to sacrifice...” he gave a small, humorless chuff of a laugh and glanced at Garak, “is it any wonder I just don't get Preloc?”  
   
Was he reduced to being disarmed with a glance? He knew that wasn't quite accurate. It was the vulnerability behind it. It was one of the few traits in the younger man that penetrated all of Garak's defenses. Had he sensed even a trace of manipulation behind it, he would have happily thrown the doctor out on his ear and washed his hands of him. The doctor wasn't so jaded yet, though, and Garak, no matter how much he wished otherwise, wasn't immune. “This wouldn't happen if we weren't...stuck here,” he said carefully.  
   
“You mean if you could leave?” Julian asked, lifting his head and meeting his gaze.  
   
“Or you,” Garak said, nodding. “Practically everywhere we turn holds a memory. You may not be Cardassian, but I know you have excellent recall. I've explained to you before how my people process and experience the past. Not only are we trapped in the same places, but we travel in overlapping social circles. We're tied to each other in ways we wouldn't be on a planet, or if one or both of us could come and go at will.”  
   
“Is that supposed to be comforting, that if you could get away from me, you would?”  
   
“Must you always take everything I say in the worst possible way?” Garak snapped.  
   
“It doesn't help that you rarely explain yourself,” Julian replied. Had he not been smiling faintly when he said it, Garak might have thrown him out anyway. His patience was running thin.  
   
“You humans are mentally lazy enough. I would be a poor friend indeed if I encouraged such bad habits,” he retorted without heat. “I think getting back together is a colossally bad idea. If you have...appetites...we can work with that.”  
   
“What are you suggesting?” Julian asked, his brow furrowing. “That I just...come to you when I get the urge, sneak around on Leeta, use you? You can't be serious.”  
   
“What you do with Leeta is between you and Leeta. It doesn't concern me. If I'm allowing it, and we're both in agreement about what it is we're doing, it's not using, is it?”  
   
“I don't understand,” he said, shaking his head. “Why would you propose something like that? Do you honestly believe I'd be able to do something like that?”  
   
“You did it today with no prompting or encouragement on my part,” Garak said simply. “Am I to believe that you've already told Leeta, a little light supper conversation before leaving her and coming to see me?” At Julian's dark look, he continued. “I thought not. Now, you can sit there and tell me you'll never do it again and find yourself back in the same position you were in this morning a few weeks or perhaps even months down the line, or you can try to be sensible about this and manage your problem. You said it yourself, Julian. You've tried to find balance, and you've been unable to do so your way. Why should I not be OK with this? It's a very Cardassian solution.”  
   
“I have to say, this isn't what I expected to hear when I came here tonight,” he said, sounding more than a little taken aback.  
   
“No, that much was obvious,” Garak said dryly.  
   
Julian sighed and rubbed his face. “I'll have to think about this. It may be normal for Cardassians. It's not normal for me.”  
   
Garak conceded that point with a faint incline of his head. “No need to rush,” he said. “As I've already pointed out, I'm not going anywhere.”  
   
Frowning, the doctor said, “You seemed to have a lot of contempt for Gul Dukat when he was hitting on Major Kira.”  
   
“I don't need an excuse to feel contempt for Dukat,” Garak said, amused. “You're not married. If you decide you want to be, I trust you will tell me so that I can extricate myself from the situation.”  
   
“I suppose I just have trouble believing you can be so casual about this.”  
   
“If you're wanting me to pine for you or pledge undying devotion while you vacillate, there's the door,” he said, pointing. “It's insulting. If you need that from someone, I suggest you have a deep heart-to-heart with your good friend Miles. I am certain he will provide you with all of the heart-wrenching drama you can stomach.”  
   
“That was cruel,” Julian said.  
   
“No, leading others on with no intention of follow through is cruel,” the Cardassian said without pity. “I think you know as well as I do how that man feels about you. I think you use him, in a different way than you used me, to be sure, but you use him, nonetheless. I've given you a choice, and I have been most charitably open with you about what it is and what it is not. I trust that when you've made a decision, one way or the other, you will at least have the courtesy to inform me.”  
   
Julian drew a shaky breath and let it out. “You know what I'm going to say. You're such a bastard. You enjoy seeing me like this, knowing that you've gotten under my skin.”  
   
_More than you know,_  Garak thought, feeling very much as though he had gotten back a little of his own. Others wounded him at their peril. At least that hadn't changed. “One more thing then,” he said, standing to indicate that as far as he was concerned, the visit was at an end. “Don't come to me during work hours again. That was utterly irresponsible.”  
   
“I know,” Julian said, also standing. “I won't.”  
   
Garak almost thanked him for insisting on visiting, but he decided it would be a crass overplay of his hand. No matter what Julian might think, he knew that he had regained control of the situation. While he would be content to allow the younger man to determine when and how often he came to him, Garak would be the one to control how close they were. He wouldn't make the mistake of emotional intimacy with the doctor again. He was singularly capable of both love and distance at once. In fact he had almost elevated it to an art form long before ever meeting Julian. He took him lightly by the elbow as he escorted him the short distance to his door. “Have a pleasant evening,” he said as the door hissed open and the doctor stepped into the corridor.  
   
He wasn't sure if he heard or only imagined, “Not bloody likely,” just before the door shut once more. Either way, he smiled.  
   
_Julian  
The Promenade_  
   
He had never considered himself much of a voyeur before. Somewhere along the way, meeting Garak changed that, not in a fetishistic or titillating fashion, but in making him a much keener observer. Being superior among the average had made him lazy for a large part of his life. Garak awakened a piece of him that had slumbered, disengaged and unused. He watched the Cardassian now, seated at his breakfast table with Odo. It wasn't the first time he had watched the pair of them. They were fascinating at a distance in their complex and subtle choreography of feint and counter-feint. This morning was different. Odo's stiff posture and precise movements conveyed an odd sort of brittleness. Garak was a stolid presence without being solicitous.  _To be a fly on that wall,_  Julian thought.  
   
Deep down he envied the ease with which the two came together. Outwardly, they were so different, yet they had found a way to bridge their differences with a common thread. None of Garak's other relationships seemed turbulent or terribly complex. Of course, none of Julian's other relationships were, either.  _No, because I'm able to keep them at a certain distance. I've never been able to do that with him, not the way I should._  
   
He slipped away from his observation post—he hoped unseen—and retreated to the orderly world of his work environment. Just as things had changed in the holosuite, they had changed again in the dressing room yesterday. Small pieces of the person he had always thought himself to be were falling away to reveal a stranger, a dark reflection of the shiny facade he worked so hard to create that sometimes he forgot he wasn't that mask. Garak reminded him. Revealed him.  
   
Was the tailor right? Would the two careen away from one another faster than light speed if freed of the traps, bonds, and obligations that bound them to the station and never look back, or would it be as Julian suspected and feared, that even freed of their external bonds, they would be tied to one another so tightly that they'd be doomed to return to the painful spiral until one of them was dead? He didn't have an answer to that, and he privately hoped he wouldn't have to find out any time soon. Having Garak back, even in such a tainted way, was a pleasure that for the moment outweighed any guilt of deception, and that bothered him most of all.

**Author's Note:**

> The story begins during “Starship Down” and ends shortly after “Crossfire.” While time-wise, I know that's a huge span, much of what happens is between or behind the scenes. I made the decision not to directly include anything from the episode “Our Man Bashir” largely because that episode was so tautly paced that there wasn't much room for writing in the margins. It does, however, have a large impact on the story itself. This was posted first on LiveJournal on April 8, 2010.


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